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Thoguh posted:If engineers worked for sane employers Dilbert wouldn't be a thing. HR departments live for cockblocking over something like that Agreed. I'm not even sure what a sane employer looks like anymore.  HR exists for no other purpose but to make both employees and prospective employees miserable. Do not doubt the power of "2.98 < 3.00" in the protocol-mad world of HR.
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Jun 14, 2012 14:26
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Thoguh posted:If engineers worked for sane employers Dilbert wouldn't be a thing. HR departments live for cockblocking over something like that Scott Adams has a B.A. in Economics. 
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Jun 15, 2012 00:32
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Sundae posted:Agreed. I'm not even sure what a sane employer looks like anymore. On this topic it is worth asking around small or medium sized consultancy companies. They typically will not have in-house HR and are often very busy and struggle to place ads and specifically search for employees. Could be a source of part time or full time employment.
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Jun 15, 2012 01:44
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Devian666 posted:Some of my favourite subjects from the chemistry and physical chemistry parts of my degrees, excluding risk analysis. When I do computer modelling work I rely heavily on heat and mass transfer knowledge along with fluid dynamics. Ha, I'm looking forward to P. Chem actually, although everyone I talk to that's had it says it's the worst thing ever. Everyone said that about Organic, though, and I enjoyed that one too.
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Jun 18, 2012 02:22
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Continuing resume chat, do most employers prefer 2 page+ resumes with All The Details or a condensed 1 page one?
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Jun 18, 2012 17:17
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tekz posted:Continuing resume chat, do most employers prefer 2 page+ resumes with All The Details or a condensed 1 page one? One page. "All the details" only applies for either people well into their career (like 15+, 20+ years), or people who are applying with a full C.V. If you're the average goon, one page max, and make sure your point is made within the first three lines. Assume the guy looking at your resume has 150 more to look at, and he's in a hurry to get to lunch. You want him to see something he likes almost immediately, so that your resume doesn't get tossed in the slush so that he can get to the salad bar before everyone else.
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Jun 18, 2012 17:22
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Sundae posted:Agreed. I'm not even sure what a sane employer looks like anymore.
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Jun 18, 2012 23:04
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Sundae posted:One page. "All the details" only applies for either people well into their career (like 15+, 20+ years), or people who are applying with a full C.V. This is also why face to face meetings and networking is a great opportunity. You can present as not a huge weirdo, and you have more of a chance to make a positive first impression.
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Jun 19, 2012 04:21
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Traitorous Leopard posted:Ha, I'm looking forward to P. Chem actually, although everyone I talk to that's had it says it's the worst thing ever. Everyone said that about Organic, though, and I enjoyed that one too. There's lots of good subjects in P Chem. A lot of it is really chemistry mathematics but it usually ties into some interesting things like explosion and chain reaction kinetics, or if you have a good polymer chemist there's some neat polymer design calculations, etc. Organic chemistry is good but it's a lot of work. I should have got a better grade in organic chemistry but I favoured drinking a bit too much.
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Jun 19, 2012 05:45
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Engineering Goons, I'm relocating to the NW Indiana (Greater Chicago) area in about 6-8 weeks. Currently looking for entry-level/minimal experience EE jobs in the area, if anyone knows of some companies to take a look into I'd be grateful. In the meanwhile, if any of you wanna tear my resume apart I'm all ears. 
SB35 fucked around with this message at 06:03 on Jun 22, 2012 |
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Jun 22, 2012 06:00
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SB35 posted:Engineering Goons, I'm relocating to the NW Indiana (Greater Chicago) area in about 6-8 weeks. Currently looking for entry-level/minimal experience EE jobs in the area, if anyone knows of some companies to take a look into I'd be grateful. What was your GPA? If you want to relocate again to Kansas City I could help you out if your GPA is over 3. Your resume is impressive for an entry level engineer.
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Jun 22, 2012 13:54
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SB35 posted:Engineering Goons, I'm relocating to the NW Indiana (Greater Chicago) area in about 6-8 weeks. Currently looking for entry-level/minimal experience EE jobs in the area, if anyone knows of some companies to take a look into I'd be grateful. That's good experience. If you're willing to check out Iowa, I've got friends at Rockwell Collins that may be hiring for their groups (EMC mostly, groups work on DAGR/etc)
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Jun 22, 2012 14:14
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Are superlatives like what I see at the top of that Summary helpful on a resume? It seems to me like most of it should be taken for granted, almost like putting down "I am awesome" a few times.
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Jun 22, 2012 18:50
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SB35 posted:Engineering Goons, I'm relocating to the NW Indiana (Greater Chicago) area in about 6-8 weeks. Currently looking for entry-level/minimal experience EE jobs in the area, if anyone knows of some companies to take a look into I'd be grateful. If you had any specific, successful projects that you undertook, try to mention them. It can both highlight your skill, and give you something good to talk about during an interview. I know that I light up when I get the chance to talk about the reverse engineering process I developed, and it's a good way to show that you're excited about the career - which is valuable. The experience looks pretty good, but I've found I've had better success when I include specific successes.
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Jun 22, 2012 19:10
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Thoguh fucked around with this message at 16:09 on Aug 10, 2023 |
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Jun 22, 2012 19:12
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I think I would put up at the top "seeking an entry level position in X engineering" because it sets expectations for what level of skills I should be looking at as my eyes scroll down the page. I'd lose the first two subjective, "I'm awesome bullets" and move the "I know Chinese" to the top as that is actually a valuable skill for some companies. Since you are entry level leave the education at the top but add your GPA. The only thing I thought when I saw it was, "What's his GPA was it horribad?" The rest seemed fine.
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Jun 23, 2012 13:26
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resident posted:What was your GPA? If you want to relocate again to Kansas City I could help you out if your GPA is over 3. Your resume is impressive for an entry level engineer. If my GPA was over 3 I'd happily put it on there! Is 2.78, not that great. GF is going to school in NW Indiana, so KC is out, thanks though. movax posted:That's good experience. If you're willing to check out Iowa, I've got friends at Rockwell Collins that may be hiring for their groups (EMC mostly, groups work on DAGR/etc)  CCKeane posted:If you had any specific, successful projects that you undertook, try to mention them. It can both highlight your skill, and give you something good to talk about during an interview. I know that I light up when I get the chance to talk about the reverse engineering process I developed, and it's a good way to show that you're excited about the career - which is valuable. I know what you mean, easier said than done I guess, as an intern one often gets put on as an assistant to an already ongoing project. I feel as if my successful projects, outside the anechoic chamber, are all rather small potatoes. Thoguh posted:Here's what I think you are trying to say: Mufgos posted:I think I would put up at the top "seeking an entry level position in X engineering" because it sets expectations for what level of skills I should be looking at as my eyes scroll down the page. It seems that many people have said not to put an objective on your resume, but I see what you mean. I will move Chinese up. GPA is 2.78, is that horribad?  I slacked off the first couple years, and didn't really know how to study. It got better but by then the damage was done. I'm not super happy with it, but it's not like I'm going to go back to school and bump it up with some fluff classes. So it is what it is.
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Jun 24, 2012 05:26
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SB35 posted:GPA is 2.78, is that horribad?
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Jun 24, 2012 13:58
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Thoguh fucked around with this message at 16:09 on Aug 10, 2023 |
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Jun 24, 2012 15:17
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I got two great years of internships and had my (at that time, around sophomore year I think) GPA of 2.77 on my resume. Senior year I had around a 2.9(?) and I turned down three job offers and went to grad school (where I have a 4.0 now!  ) I wouldn't leave it off unless it was really terri-bad.(I did a lot of undergraduate research to balance out my not so great GPA, so I am definitely not a typical case.) Frinkahedron fucked around with this message at 19:27 on Jun 24, 2012 |
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Jun 24, 2012 19:23
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Goons posted:
Thanks Engineer goons, I appreciate it your opinions
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Jun 25, 2012 03:56
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regarding my resume
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SB35 posted:Engineering Goons, I'm relocating to the NW Indiana (Greater Chicago) area in about 6-8 weeks. Currently looking for entry-level/minimal experience EE jobs in the area, if anyone knows of some companies to take a look into I'd be grateful. Out of curiosity... what have you been doing since you graduated in 2009? It looks like you didn't work for 2.5 years and then were part of a team doing language training? I'm just wondering if there might be difficulty explaining the gap in the resume when looking for a job in EE.
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Jun 25, 2012 13:25
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There is a pretty good article in the IEEE Spectrum this month about why employers are still whining about not being able to find engineers despite the glut of unemployed people right now. Excerpt: quote:I had an employer write to me the other day saying they had a skills gap, and they really did. It wasn’t wages, because they did market wage surveys, and they were paying what everybody else was paying, and all the employers, by the way, are having a skills gap, so it’s a big problem. Well, if everybody’s got the same problem, and you’re all paying the same wage, it’s probably the case that you’re not paying enough. So the way markets work isn’t you set the wage and say, “Well, this is good enough.” You pay what it takes to get the people you need, and if wages have to go up, then so be it, right? You wouldn’t say, for example, that there’s a shortage of diamonds. Diamonds are very expensive. They cost a lot, but you can buy all the diamonds you want as long as you’re willing to pay Full article: http://spectrum.ieee.org/podcast/at-work/tech-careers/why-bad-jobsor-no-jobshappen-to-good-workers Basically the conclusion is that employers won't train people and they won't pay more, preferring to ask for more H1B1 visas and ask schools to provide job training. I really wish that the IEEE (the only engineering professional society I'm familiar with, maybe the others are similar) would do more to promote the interests of engineers instead of employers. There doesn't seem to be any focus at all on improving pay and working conditions for engineers. All of their conferences and activities focus on teaching technical skills to benefit employers but without the increased compensation that should follow. I think they should take the AMA as a model of a professional society that actually looks out for its members.
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Jun 25, 2012 17:11
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Thoguh fucked around with this message at 16:08 on Aug 10, 2023 |
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Jun 25, 2012 17:56
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Thoguh posted:That was a really good interview and highlights a big problem with engineering right now. Companies want to treat engineers as commodities that are pluggable and interchangeable rather than as professionals. There is another report on the same subject called "The Widget Effect" which discusses the same problems in education. It's pretty interesting. This article has a lot of discussion on performance reviews and how the current focus on teacher performance as a way to improve test scores is harming education. Basically the trend nation wide to treat employees as widgets that are considered interchangeable at all times is really bad. http://widgeteffect.org/downloads/TheWidgetEffect.pdf
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Jun 25, 2012 18:22
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Vomik posted:Out of curiosity... what have you been doing since you graduated in 2009? It looks like you didn't work for 2.5 years and then were part of a team doing language training? I'm just wondering if there might be difficulty explaining the gap in the resume when looking for a job in EE. Studying Chinese, working odd jobs doing English training. Not difficult for me to explain. I just don't want to clutter it up with 5-7 jobs not really pertaining to my future plans. Though I understand it could cause confusion. I actually do mention in my cover letter that I've studied and worked in China for the last 3 years, and briefly on my resume. Do you suggest any way to clear up the confusion?
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Jun 25, 2012 23:19
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I'm kind of looking for some advice, and I'm not entirely sure if this is the right thread to post in. I'll start off by saying I'm double majoring in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. I'm coming up on my last three semesters of college, I have a 2.89 GPA currently, I've had no internships, and I'm not sure what I really want to do with my degrees. I suppose I'm sort of looking for direction from someone who's a bit more experienced. I'm 29 and have had a career already in Insurance, but I seriously doubt that will help me with anything Engineering related. I'd like to not make bad decisions right out of the gate, and I honestly have no idea what to expect. If anyone has any advice, I'd gladly take it.
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Jun 25, 2012 23:37
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notlupus posted:I'm kind of looking for some advice, and I'm not entirely sure if this is the right thread to post in. I'll start off by saying I'm double majoring in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. I'm coming up on my last three semesters of college, I have a 2.89 GPA currently, I've had no internships, and I'm not sure what I really want to do with my degrees. This is outside of my field and second hand knowledge, but according to some of my friends you should try to focus on occupying the gap in between electrical engineering and software. Some of buddies maintain that it's their most valuable skill. Try to get an internship, but another advantage you might be able to press is having a bit of a working network. Try to hit up some old colleagues, get your linkedin set up, make a couple posts on facebook, etc.
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Jun 25, 2012 23:45
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CCKeane posted:This is outside of my field and second hand knowledge, but according to some of my friends you should try to focus on occupying the gap in between electrical engineering and software. Some of buddies maintain that it's their most valuable skill. This is really all I can think of as well. I have one more Summer to get an internship, and I'm going to do whatever I can to raise my GPA between now and then. The only reason I didn't get one this Summer is due to needing to take a few classes that are prerequisites, so I wouldn't spend another year here. I would really like to get into computer hardware design, robotics, or systems programming, but I'm not sure how hard it'd be to break into those fields. In the past, I would work to educate myself, but years of college has kind of burned that drive out of me. Now I just try to spend my free time enjoying not doing school work.
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Jun 26, 2012 00:04
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Anyone have any info on what the CFD engineering job market is like? In the UK specifically. I'm entering my third year of uni, looking at Masters projects and want to choose something that relates to a potential job later on. I'm interested in CFD because it seems like it can be applied to various fields within engineering that I am interested in (power generation, aeronautics), and seems like a fairly fast-growing market. Is that accurate? Any advice/caveats for people considering a career in CFD?
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Jun 26, 2012 16:05
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Waarg posted:Anyone have any info on what the CFD engineering job market is like? In the UK specifically. I'm entering my third year of uni, looking at Masters projects and want to choose something that relates to a potential job later on. I'm interested in CFD because it seems like it can be applied to various fields within engineering that I am interested in (power generation, aeronautics), and seems like a fairly fast-growing market. Is that accurate? Any advice/caveats for people considering a career in CFD? Can't tell about the UK, but I work in polymer processing in the Netherlands and we (should) do lots of simulations. We are still looking for people, last I checked. Computers are getting more and more powerful, and commercial packages can do more and more, like automatic meshing, etc. So yes there is a market, but to get the most out of your Master's, try to be more than a guy who gets a mesh, some material parameters, pushes some buttons and waits for a result. Try to get a fundamental grasp on the different methods (FDM, FVM, FEM, ...), how they work, drawbacks, when they will fail, when they are excellent, etc. If I gave you simple convection-diffusion problem, could you make write a code to solve the equation with one of those methods? For me, even more important than the methods, is understanding models. This is where your added value comes in over some guy in India. Understand turbulence models, multiphase methods, rheology, proper boundary conditions, etc. Be able to make choices on what physics can we cut to simplify the problem. Making a good mesh is important, but stuff like that often gets outsourced to India, and many packages do it for you nowadays. Still, pick up some knowledge about it, so you can sometimes do it yourself, or at least judge if a mesh is good or bad. Having working experience with at least one commercial package (Fluent, abaqus, COMSOL, ...) is always a big plus on a CV. I only had a little from some undergrad courses, but loads with the code we developed at the university, and I think it hurt me a bit in some interviews. Finally, to keep you motivated, if possible choose a problem for you Master's that either has challenging numerics/modeling, or the physics of the problem itself are very interesting, preferably both. So simulating a simple flow in a pipe with the latest turbulence models that has stability issues you are trying to tackle is better than a simple flow in a pipe. Similarly, computing the drag of a new submarine design is better than the drag of a sphere in a tube.
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Jun 26, 2012 17:30
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OctaviusBeaver posted:There is a pretty good article in the IEEE Spectrum this month about why employers are still whining about not being able to find engineers despite the glut of unemployed people right now. This really rings true for me right now. I have that 3-5 experience level (5 years actually). I feel I'm stuck at a firm with little opportunity for promotion for the next 5 years. The few offers I've had have been either contract work, where the engineer is just a commodity to use for 6-months, or its been for less compensation. I absolutely feel for those out of work. I just feel that employers have used the recession as an excuse to instill a feeling of "you should be grateful for what we give you".
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Jun 27, 2012 04:59
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OperaMouse posted:Can't tell about the UK, but I work in polymer processing in the Netherlands and we (should) do lots of simulations. We are still looking for people, last I checked. Computers are getting more and more powerful, and commercial packages can do more and more, like automatic meshing, etc. This is all good stuff. I use some CFD modeling for fire simulations (it's not my entire job I do more than that). Fluid mechanics and heat and mass transfer courses add considerable knowledge in the field. For the work that I do I tend to hand pick the meshes are there are specific phenomena that need to be examined and modeled well. Knowing one package would be a good start but having any experience running your own sophisticated models would be a big advantage. In fact when I did my masters one of my lecturers stated that CFD would become more commonplace in 10 years, of course that 10 years has been and gone. For UK jobs I'd assume a company like Mott MacDonald would still do CFD work. Though there are likely to be plenty of other engineering companies that would do CFD these days.
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Jun 27, 2012 05:58
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Thoguh fucked around with this message at 16:08 on Aug 10, 2023 |
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Jun 27, 2012 12:09
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fishhooked posted:This really rings true for me right now. I have that 3-5 experience level (5 years actually). I feel I'm stuck at a firm with little opportunity for promotion for the next 5 years. The few offers I've had have been either contract work, where the engineer is just a commodity to use for 6-months, or its been for less compensation. I think that is management in general. It is easier to treat people as commodities than as professionals, especially when management's technical background is limited to industry buzzwords. I heard this almost verbatim from my manager (third different manager in 3 years) at my performance review in January. My "compensation adjustment" will result in a 25% pay cut this year.
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Jun 27, 2012 17:46
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I'm an engineering supervisor that recently filled a couple of positions for my engineering group. It was absolutely rage-worthy how bad HR is when it comes to engineering needs for candidates. I really feel bad for fresh graduates because I don't see it getting better at all.
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Jun 28, 2012 05:14
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The Experiment posted:I'm an engineering supervisor that recently filled a couple of positions for my engineering group. It was absolutely rage-worthy how bad HR is when it comes to engineering needs for candidates. Do you prefer resumes that get networked straight over to your desk, and then you can badger HR into granting them interviews? That's how a lot of my supervisors did it...everyone HR "found" for them was not a good fit, at all. I post this every page I feel, but getting your resume read by the guy who runs the group who is hiring (or at least someone who is in that group) is already a huge step ahead of ploughing through HR.
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Jun 28, 2012 14:06
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Why would HR have any authority in an engineering company? Just tell them what to do and if they don't do it they're interfering with your work. You'll note that I don't care much for HR as they are otherwise unemployable.
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Jun 28, 2012 19:39
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Devian666 posted:Why would HR have any authority in an engineering company? Just tell them what to do and if they don't do it they're interfering with your work. You'll note that I don't care much for HR as they are otherwise unemployable. HR at my employer has not figured out that recruiting to the midwest is easier if you actually take prospective employees out of the suburbs to eat somewhere other than Applebee's when on an interview visit. They have no loving clue what Kansas City actually has to offer because they've seemingly never traveled inside the loop.
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Jun 28, 2012 21:41
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OperaMouse posted:Incredibly useful information.
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Jun 28, 2012 22:21
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